


1PM

by ultrafreakyfangirl



Series: There are only so many hours in a day, but in that day, there are unlimited moments to be had. (Merluca) [3]
Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:47:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23370424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ultrafreakyfangirl/pseuds/ultrafreakyfangirl
Summary: It's 1PM on a normal workday...or so Andrew thought.
Relationships: Meredith Grey/Andrew DeLuca
Series: There are only so many hours in a day, but in that day, there are unlimited moments to be had. (Merluca) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1680421
Comments: 2
Kudos: 44





	1PM

**Author's Note:**

> This one takes place before last week’s episode again. But only a week or so before those events occurred. Also, I'm sorry for the trashy Italian. Blame Google. Hope you guys like it! I kind of love where I’m going with this series, honestly. It’s glad to see that you guys do too! I appreciate those kudos, but comments are what really makes my day, and gives me more incentive to write!

He couldn’t say no to her. It just wasn’t possible. Especially when she was looking at him, looking at him…like that. In the way that they looked at each other sometimes, when one wanted something from the other, usually something with more of a sexual intent, but this particular ask, from her, was not one of those.

Take care of a very pregnant and very unpredictable Amelia. Couldn’t Maggie do it, he had asked, only to be rebuffed. She’s got a four hour surgery, and so do I. It’s the same surgery. Link? Kid with a shattered kneecap. It’s down to you, Andrew. And Amelia likes you. She doesn’t like a lot of people.

Well that was true, he’d felt that ever since her tumor diagnosis, they’d had a bond of some sort, and, again, with Meredith looking at him like that…impossible.

“Yeah, okay. You can count on me.”

Meredith sighed, though it was in relief. “I know. I love you.”

He smiled. Well, more like grinned. She’s been using those three little words a lot more with him lately, and if he were a resident psychologist, he would say it had something to do with the loss of her husband so young, so early, and how she had taken those words for granted before; though, if he was a resident romantic, and he was one, he would say it’s because she just can’t say it enough, because the words don’t quite do her feelings for him justice, anymore.

Andrew took her softly into his arms, letting her body fall where it may, not forceful, and with yet another smile, he breathed in the, now very familiar, pear smell; and for a moment, it reminded him of lazy Saturday nights when they shared a pillow, and even lazier Sunday mornings, limbs wet and draped around each other like vines, when they shared a shower.

“I love you too. I’m doing this for you. Because honestly, right now, Amelia scares me. More than she does, usually.”

Meredith laughed. “That’s funny. I should tell her you said that.”

He practically gaped at her. “No. Please don’t. It won’t do me or her any favors.”

She laughed again, her cute, girlish, lilting little laugh that made his heart swell, before leaning forward a bit to kiss him. He gripped at her scrub top. He couldn’t help it. She laughed against his open mouth and he held onto her waist with his other hand. He wanted to start something that neither of them had the time to finish, and right now, she wasn’t doing her part to stop him. 

Finally, she pulled back, just enough so that their lips were no longer touching. “Okay, okay, slow down there, mister.

“I have to go.”

She gave him a beaming smile, though he had a feeling it was meant to be more of a sexy one. Not in his wildest dreams since Jo and Alex’s wedding, did he ever think that he had the slightest chance in making Meredith Grey _this_ happy. He acted like it, in front of her, but he hadn’t truly believed it until New Years. Until their first kiss.

Where they fit together like puzzle pieces, breathed together, as one, and felt, together, the matching jolt of physical electricity; and that was when he knew that they would make it. 

“Do you have to?”

“Unfortunately, yes. I have to go save lives.”

He gave her a crooked smile. “Not unfortunately. Mer, you love this job.”

She mimicked his expression. “Sometimes even more than you.”

He chuckled. “Lie.”

She didn’t. “Truth.”

He moved closer to her again. Close enough so that their lips touched but didn’t meld together in a kiss. “ _so che sta mentendo_.” Not yet.

In response, as if to affirm him, she touched their lips together, light, chaste. “What did we say about speaking Italian when I had somewhere to be?”

“Hm… _non te lo promentto_ …”

She pushed his chest to give herself some distance. “You _can_ promise.” Her pager went off before she could say another word. Or kiss him again. “Now I seriously have to go. Have fun with Amelia, okay?”

Meredith looked up towards the stairs and then back at him. “She might still be sleeping…Amy! I’m going to the hospital, alright? Maggie left awhile ago, but Andrew’s here! You two have fun!”

Andrew rolled his eyes. “Well, she’s not going to be sleeping now.”

Meredith fixed her eyes on him again. It looked like she was thinking about kissing him but was really fighting with herself not to. He loved that look on her.

“Shut up.”

He shrugged. “Well, you better get going or your patient might die on the table.” A smirk tugged relentlessly at his mouth, as one did hers.

“Nice.”

“I learn from the best.”

She leaned in to kiss him goodbye and he reciprocated. Andrew was just closing the door behind her when Amelia came down the stairs.

“Hey, DeLuca…I’m gonna need you to hold my hair back for me when I puke in approximately five minutes or less.”

“How…how is that so precise?”

Amelia shrugged, blowing a hair out of her face that came free from her ponytail. “It’s been six months of this. Besides, I’ve had my fair share of hangovers…and detoxes.”

Andrew’s eyes widened. “What?”

Amelia laughed good naturedly. “Oh, come on. Didn’t Mer tell you all about my messed up history with drugs?”

He paused for a minute. He didn’t know the correct answer to that. Amelia didn’t seem to care either way, she was oddly cavalier with the whole thing, reminded him of Meredith a lot in that way, actually; and of course he and Meredith had spent nights in between kissing and other things talking about their past lives, before each other, and that had included her husband’s sister’s sordid young adult years, but he didn’t want to offend Amelia, or throw his girlfriend under the bus.

So, he didn’t say anything right away, long enough for Amelia to fill the silence herself.

“Anyways, long story short, I had a drug addiction for a long time, and withdrawal symptoms were always a beast. This is nothing.”

“Pregnancy?” Andrew questioned, almost laughing.

“Yeah.” Amelia went pale, as quick as her next breath, and clutched at the curve of her belly. “Speaking of – bathroom – DeLuca – _now_.”

He ran after her into the downstairs bathroom, and dutifully held her hair while she hurled and afterwards, got her some water and her latest craving – olives. “I hated olives before.”

He popped one into his mouth. He loved them. Always had. He realized then that it was a question he’d never asked Meredith. “Before you got pregnant?”

He watched Amelia lovingly stroke her belly. He wanted to, but it felt too weird to ask, even though he was a doctor. Touching the belly of someone he knew personally, and wasn’t intimate with, felt weird, felt like he was encroaching on a personal boundary of some kind.

“Yeah. Obviously that’s what I meant. I never thought…you know that I’d be pregnant again.”

Andrew wasn’t sure if he should ask, if that was an invitation or not, so he let a moment of silence pass before he asked her. “Do you know the gender?”

She sighed. “No. But I have a feeling it’s a boy. Link thinks it’s a girl. But I want a boy.”

He nodded pensively. “I think I want a girl.”

Amelia turned to stare at him. He’d said the wrong thing. Used the wrong verb tense. Shit. Before he could scramble to correct himself, she spoke.

“You want kids?”

At least it gave him time to settle on an answer. An appropriate answer. “Mer’s kids are amazing. They’re enough for me.”

Amelia raised an eyebrow. It made him nervous that it felt like he hadn’t convinced her. “Are you sure? Biology is a big deal to some people Andrew… “

She blushed suddenly, and Andrew didn’t know why she had until she spoke over herself. “ _DeLuca_. Biology…it’s a bigger deal than some people think at first.”

He nodded in acknowledgement of her point, let it sink in. He hadn’t really thought about it as something huge for him, but he also hadn’t given kids a serious thought, not until he met a woman with three of them. So, there were two sides to every story.

“You can call me Andrew, Amelia,” he said in lieu of an answer. “Some of our coworkers do.”

Amelia raised her eyebrow again. “Meredith does. It feels like a Mer thing. So, I’m okay.”

He chuckled, and it turned into a full blown laugh once Amelia pointed out the redness to his face and neck. He grinned at her. “Suit yourself, Shepherd.”

The conversation veered away from kids then, and babies, and whether or not he wanted ones of his own where biology was concerned, and onto other, more mundane, things.

In this time, he got her ice cream (to put her olives in, something that made him nearly gag) and watched two cheesy, romantic comedies. Before he knew it, Meredith was back. Along with Maggie.

While Maggie stayed downstairs to spend time with Amelia, Meredith took him by the hand and led him upstairs, and by the feel of her hand in his, it was like she had a million questions on the tip of her tongue, none of which though, would be answered.

She pushed him roughly against her bedroom door, the force of his body propelling against it, opening it wide, and then slamming it in three seconds flat.

“What – “

_“Mi sei mancanta…”_

“I missed you too, Mer, but your – “

She interrupted him with her mouth, searing it hotly against his and pushing him forward until he fell against the bed. After three tries, he broke free from her, not that he really wanted to, _at all,_ but…

“Mer, your sisters are downstairs…”

He went directly for her neck now, and he smirked as she tipped her head back in that temptress sort of way that always made him crazy for her. “ _Mi fai impazzirie_ …” _You drive me crazy..._

“Do I? Well you drive me _absolutely insane_ …”

“Gross!” Amelia called up to them, and Maggie promptly echoed sentiment.

“We can hear you down here, and all I can say now, Meredith, is that I am so glad I went to French immersion preschool!”

“And I’m glad I took Spanish in high school,” Maggie said, and both he and Meredith collapsed onto the bed, and each other, in a fit of laughter, the mood effectively ruined.

Once their laughter subsided, Meredith sat up, put her chin in her hand and stared at him. “So, how was it? With Amelia, I mean. Was she a pain in the ass?”

Andrew mirrored her and shook his head. “No. We had a nice time. Watched “The Princess Diaries”, ate ice cream with olives.”

Meredith scrunched up her nose. “Ew.”

“Well, I ate the ice cream by itself, Amelia though, pregnancy has her craving olives, apparently. And ice cream. Together.”

“Pregnancy’s weird. When I was pregnant with Bailey, all I wanted was peanut butter sandwiches.”

Andrew looked at her, confused. “Well that doesn’t sound too weird.”

“With spray cheese.”

“Okay, a little bit weird.”

“And then with Ellis it was strawberries dipped in guacamole.”

He shook his head. “You couldn’t pay me enough to eat that.”

She chuckled. “And that’s why men don’t get pregnant. They get the easy job.”

“I beg to differ there. Fatherhood seems like a tough gig.”

He sensed a pause in conversation just then, though it wasn’t long enough to know for certain.

“Do you…is that something you want, Andrew?”

It seemed like a double edged sword. He didn’t want to jump into it too quickly. “I…I don’t…having my own children, biologically, it’s not something I need to be fulfilled…and I can’t tell you that I’ve always wanted or thought about being a dad, either.”

He saw the look on her face. For the time being though, he would let her think that she was too quick for him, even though the truth of it is that she hadn’t been for a long time.

“It’s not that I didn’t want to ever be a dad. It’s just not something I actively thought about, growing up, throughout internship…”

He grabbed for her hands and he breathed out a sigh of relief when she let him take them. He looked her straight in the eyes.

“But then I met your kids. Zola, Bailey, Ellis…and then like I fell in love with you, Mer, I fell in love with them.”

There were tears in her eyes now. “You did?” She sounded so vulnerable, so small. “Really?”

He smiled to reassure her. “Really. Just like you, your kids amaze me, every day I’m around them."

“No they don’t. They’re brats,” she sniffed.

“No they’re not. They’re perfect,” he smiled again, spoke softly. “Just like their mother.”

She breathed out, gasped a little, almost in disbelief. “You’re not real, Andrew DeLuca. You can’t be real.”

He tilted his head to the side. “Oh I’m real, my darling. _Siamo fatti l’uno all’altra.” We’re made for each other._

She captured his mouth with hers, and it didn’t seem like she was going to let it go anytime soon as they fell into the bed together, not caring who heard them.


End file.
